Flicker has been playing by ear all of her life. She remembers being a 5-year-old playing an old paddle organ that had belonged to her grandparents. She was accompanied by her father, who played harmonica.

“They bought me a piano when I was 13, and we got rid of the organ,” she said.

Flicker played piano bar at the VFW and the Red Bull Bar in Little Falls for many years.

“I still have the Red Bull Bar songbook with about 200 songs in it,” she said.

She played at the Red Bull every Saturday night, and sometimes on both Wednesday and Saturday.

She also played at the Vogue and the Elks Club, both in Brainerd.

Flicker was part of several bands, including the Northern Knights, Don’s Concertina Band and Eddie Medek’s.

“We played at wedding dances at the Falls Ballroom and all over,” she said. “I used to sing at Mogenson’s, a tavern out close to South Long Lake. There was a stove in the middle that people danced around but it was so cold on stage, I stuck my cold feet in a warm bathtub when I got home.”

More recently, Flicker was part of the “Gesundheit Singers” group that formed for the Pierz centennial in the late 1990s. For several years after that, they rode in parades and sang at nursing homes in Little Falls.

“We sang a lot of German songs; we had a book of them,” said Flicker.

She has always played for family, at birthday parties and used to play at St. Joseph’s Church in Pierz.

“I sang in the choir for 75 years,” she said. “Music was my life.”

A great many of Flicker’s seven children, 13 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren will be with her at Bar Harbor.

“Mary is going to print up some song sheets,” said Flicker. “We’ll sing some Christmas tunes, some classic tunes.”